a matter of course moral
feelings must become transferred to the relations which are believed to
obtain between ourselves and this most holy God. Indeed, it is these very
feelings which, in the absence of any proof to the contrary, must be
concluded, in accordance with the law of parcimony, to have _generated_
this idea of God as "holy, just," and good. And the mere fact that, when
the complex system of religious belief has once been built up, conscience
is strongly wrought upon by that belief and its accompanying emotions, is
surely a fact the very reverse of mysterious. Suppose, for the sake of
argument, that the moral sense has been evolved from the social feelings,
and should we not certainly expect that, when the belief in a moral and
all-seeing God is superadded, conscience should be distracted at the
thought of offending him, and experience a "soothing, satisfactory delight"
in the belief that we are pleasing him? And as to the argument, "Why does
the wicked flee when none pursueth? whence his terror?" the question admits
of only too easy an answer. Indeed, the form into which the question is
thrown would almost seem--were it not written by Dr. Newman--to imply a
sarcastic reference to the power of superstition. "Who is it that," not
only Dr. Newman, but the haunted savage, the mediaeval sorcerer, or the
frightened child, "sees in solitude, in darkness, in the hidden chambers of
his heart?" Who but the "image" of his own thought? "If the cause of these
emotions does not belong to this visible world, the Object to which his
perception is directed must be supernatural and divine." Assuredly; but
what an inference from what an assumption! Whether or not the moral sense
has been developed by natural causes, "these emotions" of terror at the
thought of offending beings "supernatural and divine" are not of such
unique occurrence "in the visible world" as to give Dr. Newman the monopoly
of his particular "Object." With a deeper meaning, therefore, than he
intends may we repeat, "The phenomena of conscience as a dictate _avail_ to
impress the _imagination_ with the _picture_ of a Supreme Governor." But
criticism here is positively painful. Let it be enough to say that those of
us who do not already believe in any such particular "Object"--be it ghost,
shape, demon, or deity--are strangers, utter and complete, to any such
supernatural pursuers. The fact, therefore, of these various religious
emotions being associated with co